Into the Deep Wood

The mood had been somber since Iros and his men had departed. Although grateful for everything they received, they once again ended up in a situation where the assurance of safety had been ripped from their grasp.

Val kept listening over her shoulder for Marat to give her an explanation. He had answered the High Templar’s questions with resolve - as if he had already expected the entrance to be blocked for them.

It was quite a bit of time before either one of them spoke. It had been Val gathering the bravery within herself to ask the question.

“Marat?”

“Hm?”

“Did you know that they would not let us in?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” She did not know how to feel. She hated it when he spared her feelings. When he did not trust her.

He let out a strained breath of air as if he had been anticipating this question.

“If I were to rob you of hope, then neither of us would have it.” He said.

“Do you think I cannot take it?”

“I know you can’t.”

She grew silent, her eyes downcast, but only for a moment.

“Marat? Do you really think I cry too much?” She asked.

“Yes.”

“Do you know why?”

“You grew jealous of the attention children got when doing the same?”

She elbowed behind her, meeting the leather of his vest with an audible thump. She felt his body shake with repressed laughter. He had thought he was so funny.

“No, really?”

“I suppose,” his tone changed, accommodating the conversation, “I think you are sensitive to the world, to the disappointment that it turned out to be. Some people are.”

She appreciated his words, but he had missed the mark.

“I did not cry as a child,” she looked out at the road ahead, her eyes wandering aimlessly. “I had no cause to, that is, until my father died.”

He said nothing, and she did not expect him to. She was not trying to evoke pity, especially knowing that he had lost both his parents far before their time.

“Even after, I’d known my mother and grandmother’s love for me even when they had been strict. I never did anything daring where I could get hurt and spill tears.” She continued. “And then, when I was still young - so much younger than I am now - I ended up at the Glade…”

Her voice broke, a lump in her throat threatening to silence her.

“I cried the first… I don’t know, a long time. I don’t know how long. But I cried because she hurt me, and I cared about the pain—the fear. And then, I suddenly didn’t. She’d broken something inside me. My spirit, maybe? I am not sure.”

She cleared her throat.

“All I knew was that the punishments, the trickery, the mental games. So, I went numb. So numb that I no longer felt human. My body was a shell, but there was nothing inside. I think… I think that is how I needed to survive.” She spoke, and he did not interrupt. “I’d grown so numb that I no longer opposed her command. I did not feel human. It was not until you and… Erlan… had arrived that I felt anything. It must have been many, many years.”

"You did not know us or if we were dangerous." It was obvious Marat did not expect the depth of this conversation.

“I knew you weren't her. Even then, fear was the only thing I could feel vividly. It was who I was. And then, hope. And it felt real. For once, I had not just gone through the motions of ‘feeling’ as I remembered it, but I truly did feel.” She went on, “After hope, it all came back with force. As if the gates had been opened and everything that made me human came rushing out all at once. It overwhelmed me and tired me out very quickly. I felt as if the strain of those emotions was too much for what remained of me. It was all so… hard. So amplified from what I remembered. And it did not lessen. Any small thing, any big thing, it felt as if the Hag’s hand loomed over me, and I waited for it to strike me even so far away.”

“How do you know this?” He asked her.

“I thought about it a lot.” She answered.

“When I said you cry a lot?”

“No.” She shook her head. “It was after the Legho. What I felt in those days as it neared was such overwhelming fear and sadness. It was as if every cell in my body carried it. When you told me that its approach pulls at the worst in a person - I realized that I carried a part of the Hag at my very core. Even after I had left, her presence was heavier inside me than anything else. And, when you pointed it out - I just thought, I still haven’t left it behind. I don’t think I ever will.”

The sounds of nature emphasized the gravity of her words, peacefully continuing on in the background. After a minute, she felt Marat loosen his hands on the reins and instead bring them in around her waist, pulling her closer to his body. Once again, she felt the lump in her throat - this time not from the pain of the memories but from the temporary relief from them.

"I have not been anything but a stupid, stupid girl in a really long time. Even still, I hear her call me that. And still, I am not sure that I'm not."

“You're not a stupid girl, Val.” He said quietly. “And I think, maybe, that makes you stronger than I.”

“How so?”

“I could not handle such.” He admitted. “Not with my mother, my father, and not with Erlan. I looked to overpower or extinguish it. And then I tried to outrun it.”

Val was a bit taken aback by the vulnerable words. They sounded foreign coming from him.

“Do you want to talk about it?” She asked.

”No.”

“Will you still make fun of me when I cry?”

“Probably.”

She smiled. So like him, she should not have expected different.

With every league traveled, the landscape changed. They rode atop steep hills, the view stretching far and allowing Val to take in the vastness of the lands around them. So much open air - so many leagues of jagged terrain, greenery, and there - beyond the worst of it, she could see the winding Crimson River. From there, it had not looked red but blue and reflective of the sun above.

“How far are we going? Where is this place?” They were stopped for the night, the fire blazing before them and the smell of potatoes buried in the coals filling the air.

“How much farther?” Val asked.

“I do not know how far, but I know well of it.” He answered her. “Erlan and I had traveled there. But never from Titan’s Pass. It does not connect to the main road. To reach it is a bit of a perilous task - it is through the mountains or down the river, and the waters get very choppy at more than one point.”

“So you’d been there?”

“That is what I said, yes. You know how I told you that the Nothing-touched creatures' presence feels like pain?” He said. She furrowed her brow, annoyed at his change of subject.

“Yeah…”

“Well, the places that pieces of the Nothing fell to the earth, they created Wounds. Like the pain, but worse. Much worse. The Deep Wood is one.” Marat said.

“This place we are going, is it another?” She guessed.

“Yes.”

“And this is where we are going to be safe?” Val shot him a reproachful look. If this was like the Deep Wood, she thought she might have gone South instead.

“Not every Wound is created the same. This place, this region, it had been there since the beginning. Its people found a way. Life always finds a way.”

“Can I ask you something else?” Val continued.

“You are going to regardless of what I say, I imagine.” He sighed. Always the questions. Unending questions.

She ignored this entirely.

“Why did you never carry a bow if you are as good as Iros said?”

“It is not practical for hunting.” He answered, the annoyance mostly filtered out of his voice. He didn’t tell her about the stalkers. “You cannot load an arrow as fast as you can grip a blade. And, they do not often show themselves at distances - or try to run.”

Except for stalkers. There was a pause again.

“This one, the All-Father’s Reach, is not meant for hunting.” He added, the implication hanging in the air between them.

“Oh…” She muttered, settling to look at the fire. There were no more questions for the night.

There were five more nights like that one. Five days. They had ridden alongside a river on a mostly paved, although in disrepair, road. It wound and curved, leading them among hills and steep drops into valleys. It was subtle when it had led them higher and into more forgiving mountains than the ones surrounding Nasmeria. They were near the borders of the two states.

Yet another mesa - the road running along its steep edge. The lookout from it uncovered a long valley that one could have hardly guessed would be there. It was fully green, covered in farms and orchards, with clear signs of settlements just beyond sight. Val’s heart jumped; they had not seen a town since leaving the occupied city.

“This,” he said, looking out at the destination they had nearly reached now, “is Chelkalka.”